Trump: Redesigning the White House

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt holds up renderings of the proposed White House Ballroom during a press briefing — This renovation is just "one more eye-popping opportunity for wealthy people to buy access to this presidency."

(Image credit: Pete Marovich For The Washington Post / Getty Images)

President Trump's White House makeover is "both awful and fitting," said Mona Charen in The Bulwark. Having adorned the Oval Office with golden cherubs and paved over the Rose Garden lawn to create a Mar-a-Lago-esque patio, the president unveiled a new plan last week to append "a huge, gaudy ballroom" to the East Wing. At 90,000 square feet, the white-and-gold structure will dwarf the 55,000-square-foot main building. The stately presidential residence will be "transformed into something tasteless and embarrassing," perfectly suited to a president who has been "a walking wrecking ball of law, tradition, civility, manners, and morals." Trump's plans predate his presidency, said Kevin Liptak in CNN.com. He proposed building a White House ballroom in 2010, only to be rejected by then-President Barack Obama. Now, with construction set to begin next month, the $200 million project will solidify Trump's "physical imprint on the executive mansion."

What's so terrible about that? asked The New York Sun in an editorial. There's "a long roster of previous presidential occupants who sought to spruce up the venue." Thomas Jefferson added colonnades, Teddy Roosevelt "created what we now know as the West Wing," and Franklin Delano Roosevelt added much of the East Wing four decades later. But those presidents failed to build a decent function space; the current reception room can fit only 200 people. Larger events are held in a tent on the White House lawn, and "when it rains," Trump has noted, "it's a disaster." His ballroom should seat 650 people and will be funded by the president and other donors, the administration says. Taxpayers shouldn't have to spend a cent.

That means oligarchs from the U.S. and overseas will pick up the bill, said Christopher Bonanos in Curbed, because "Trump rarely pays for anything if he can get someone else to do it." This renovation is just "one more eye-popping opportunity for wealthy people to buy access to this presidency." It's all deeply un-American, said David Gardner in The Daily Beast. The Founding Fathers "intended the government to be accountable to the people," which is why George Washington rejected French architect Pierre Charles L'Enfant's plan for a Versailles-like presidential residence and opted for a more modest design that would foster civic pride. That vision isn't shared by Trump, who wants a palace fit for a king. He is transforming the "home of the republic" into "a showpiece for the very rich and privileged—and a memorial to himself."